Saturday, March 31, 2012

Yes, he is WILLING TO RISK the WORLD ECONOMY for the psychopaths in Tel Aviv!

"Obama ready to drain Iran of oil revenue; Concludes market supply is sufficient" by Annie Lowrey | New York Times, March 31, 2012

WASHINGTON - After careful analysis of oil prices and months of negotiations, President Obama determined on Friday that there was sufficient oil in world markets to allow countries to significantly reduce their Iranian imports, clearing the way for Washington to impose severe new sanctions intended to slash Iran’s oil revenue and press Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The White House announcement comes after months of back-channel talks to prepare the global energy market to cut out Iran without raising the price of gas, which would benefit Iran and imperil the economies of the United States and Europe.

Then why has it been going up?

Since the sanctions became law in December, administration officials have encouraged oil exporters with spare capacity, particularly Saudi Arabia, to increase their production. They have discussed with Britain and France releasing their oil reserves in the event of a supply disruption.

And they have conducted a high-level campaign of shuttle diplomacy to try to persuade other countries, like China, Japan, and South Korea, to buy less oil and demand discounts from Iran, in compliance with the sanctions.

The goal is to sap the Iranian government of oil revenue that might go to finance the country’s nuclear program.

Even though they are not building a weapon.

Already, the pending sanctions have led to a decrease in oil exports and a sharp decline in the value of the country’s currency, the rial, against the dollar and euro.

Administration officials described the Saudis as willing and eager, at least since talks started in the fall, to undercut the Iranians.

One senior official who had met with the Saudi leadership, said: “There was no resistance. They are more worried about a nuclear Iran than the Israelis are.’’

If true the House of Saud is such a slave.

Still, officials said, the administration wanted to be sure that the Saudis were not talking a bigger game than they could deliver. The Saudis received a parade of visitors, including some from the Energy Department, to make the case that they had the technical capacity to pump out significantly more oil.

But some US officials remain skeptical. That is one reason Obama left open the option of reviewing this decision every few months. “We won’t know what the Saudis can do until we test it, and we’re about to,’’ the official said.

Think of this EXPERIMENTATION the next time you are filling up the old gas tank to the tune of $5 (or more) a gallon, 'murkn.

Worldwide demand for oil was another critical element of the equation that led to the White House decision on sanctions.

Yeah, except DEMAND is DOWN!

Now, projections for demand are lower than expected because of the combination of rising oil prices, the European financial crisis, and a modest slowdown in growth in China.

As one official said, “No one wants to wish for slowdown, but demand may be the most important factor.’’

Nonetheless, the sanctions pose a serious challenge for the United States. Already, concerns over a confrontation with Iran and the loss of its oil - Iran was the third-biggest exporter of crude in 2010 - have driven oil prices up about 20percent this year.

If true we have Israel to thank. The other factor is Bernanke's endless printing of money to keep Wall Street out of jail -- consequently making the money in your pocket worth less. That's why prices are rising.

A gallon of gas costs $3.92, on average, up from about $3.20 a gallon in December. The rising prices have weighed on economic confidence and cut into household budgets, a concern for an Obama administration seeking reelection....

Moreover, the new sanctions - which effectively force countries to choose between doing business with the United States and buying oil from Iran - threaten to fray diplomatic relationships with close allies that buy some of their crude from Tehran, like South Korea.

But in a conference call with reporters, senior administration officials said they were confident they could put the sanctions in effect without damaging the global economy....

And WHAT IF they are WRONG?

“We just don’t know how much negotiating advantage we have gained,’’ said one senior administration official who has been involved in developing the policy....

Think it is WORTH the PRICE at the PUMP to have a NEGOTIATION ADVANTAGE, 'murkn?

Gasoline prices, rising quickly across the country, could increase even faster in New England over the next year because of the shutdown of three refineries that serve the Northeast and the likelihood that another could close in the summer.

Economists estimate that the loss of these plants, which account for at least half of the East Coast’s refining capacity, could boost New England gas prices by as much as 15 cents per gallon - over and above increases driven by unrest in the Middle East and other global factors. The additional price increases would result largely from added costs of transporting fuel from Gulf Coast or overseas refineries.

The price of diesel and heating oil, which also are refined at the facilities, could rise as well.

“If they can’t get [replacement supplies], your prices are going to spike,’’ said Phil Flynn, an oil analyst with PFGBest in Chicago.

The more Northeast refineries that close, the more vulnerable New England becomes to higher prices and supply disruptions because of its lack of energy infrastructure, said John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group in Washington.

“You don’t have refineries in New England, you don’t have pipelines,’’ Felmy said. “You’re really an island.’’

Refiners are shutting plants after losing billions of dollars in recent years due to a combination of factors.

This as the parent companies that own them -- the big oil companies -- make BIILLIONS per quarter in PROFITS!

"As if gas prices weren’t high enough, several states across the United States are looking to raise fuel taxes they say are needed to pay for roads and bridges that are outdated, congested, and in some cases, dangerous....

WASHINGTON — Political rhetoric about the blame over gas prices and the power to change them — whether Republican claims now or Democrats’ charges four years ago — is not supported by cold, hard figures. And that’s especially true about oil drilling in the United States. More oil production in the United States does not mean consistently lower prices at the pump.

Yeah, for some reason we are treated to the SAME OLD ARGUMENTS EVERY TWO and FOUR YEARS while NOTHING CHANGES in the interim.

Sometimes prices increase as American drilling ramps up. That’s what has happened in the past three years. That’s because oil is a global commodity and US production has only a tiny influence on supply....

Friday, March 30, 2012

I had planned to work all day and post, post, post, and yet somehow another unread Boston Globe ended up on the table at the end of the evening. I'm so sorry, and profusely apologize, readers. Reading the Boston Globe is becoming one of the last things I want to do.

"Afghanistan would accept Taliban office in Qatar for peace talks" December 28, 2011

KABUL - President Hamid Karzai said yesterday that his government would accept the opening of a Taliban insurgents’ representative office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for the purpose of holding peace talks, although Saudi Arabia or Turkey would be preferable venues.

If the United States insists that the insurgents establish a liaison office in Qatar, “we are agreed,’’ Karzai said in a presidential statement.

Earlier this month, Kabul recalled its ambassador to Qatar for consultations over reports that the Taliban were planning to open an office in the tiny, gas-rich Arab state.

To date, the Islamist group has not publicly responded to peace offers. The insurgents, who perceive themselves as winning the war, have said they would not engage in talks with the government while foreign troops are on Afghan soil.

In this case, the perception is the reality.

The United States and its NATO allies have been pursuing a war against the Taliban for a decade. NATO plans to wrap up its combat activities in Afghanistan in 2014.

But they will be leaving "advisers" behind.

The government in Kabul repeatedly emphasized it would accept no foreign intervention in its plans to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Afghan media reports have speculated the United States and other foreign governments with a stake in the war were trying to strike their own Taliban deal.

The prospect of peace talks suffered a serious setback in September when Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the head of a body set up to seek contacts with the Taliban, was assassinated.

"Afghan president welcomes US remarks on Taliban" January 01, 2012|By Slobodan Lekic

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday welcomed remarks from the Obama administration that the Taliban were not necessarily America’s enemies.

Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that the Islamist militants did not represent a threat to US interests unless they continued to shelter al Qaeda.

“Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens US interests,’’ Biden was quoted as saying by Newsweek.

The Obama administration and other governments are trying to establish a peace process with the Taliban to help end the 10-year war.

Then why are their intelligence agencies and assets sabotaging it?

“I am very happy that the American government has announced that the Taliban are not their enemies,’’ Karzai said. “We hope that this message will help the Afghans reach peace and stability.’’

A senior US official has said Washington plans to continue secret meetings with Taliban representatives in Europe and the Persian Gulf region next year. Outreach by the United States had progressed to the point that there was active discussion of two steps the Taliban seeks as precursors to negotiations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Trust-building measures under discussion involve setting up a Taliban headquarters office and the release from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of several Afghan prisoners believed to be affiliated with the Taliban.

On Tuesday, Karzai said his government would accept the Taliban establishing a liaison office in Turkey, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia for the purpose of holding peace talks.

Meanwhile, NATO troops yesterday handed over responsibility for security in three districts of the embattled southern Helmand province to Afghan forces.

The Helmand governor’s office said these included Marjah district, the site of a major offensive by coalition forces last year. Coalition operations to rout the Taliban in February 2010 yielded slower than expected returns, but a troop buildup later in the year pushed insurgents out of the center of the district.

"Taliban to open Qatar office; clears way for talks; Could revive efforts at reconciliation; group also wants prisoners freed" by Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times, January 04, 2012

KABUL - The opening of an office in Qatar is meant to give Afghan and Western peace negotiators an address where they can openly contact legitimate Taliban intermediaries. That would open the way for confidence-building measures that Washington hopes to push forward in the coming months. Chief among them, US officials said, is the possibility of transferring a number of “high-risk’’ detainees - including some with ties to Al Qaeda - to Afghan custody from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoners would then presumably be freed some time in the future.

The US officials said that another idea under consideration was the establishment of cease-fire zones within Afghanistan, although that prospect was more uncertain and distant. The officials asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Some analysts are skeptical of the prospect for meaningful peace negotiations with the Taliban. The Taliban are viewed as unlikely to cede significant ground at a time when NATO has begun to withdraw troops and intends to end combat operations there in less than three years.

Another uncertainty is the role of Pakistan, which has undermined past efforts at reconciliation talks that it sees as jeopardizing its interests.

US officials have said for years that the war in Afghanistan would ultimately require a political solution, not a military one. The “surge’’ of additional troops ordered by President Obama at the end of 2009, and the sharp increase in kill-and-capture missions against the Taliban’s midlevel leadership by special operations forces over the past two years have largely been aimed at getting the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Yesterday, the White House affirmed the necessity of a negotiated solution. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in an e-mail that “Afghan-led peace initiatives’’ were central to the US strategy of “denying Al Qaeda safe haven, reversing the Taliban’s momentum, and strengthening the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.’’

The Taliban has momentum?

A truism of war, folks: those that seek peace talks are losing on the battlefield.

Though there were public hints of interest, Western officials in Kabul were questioning as recently as last month whether the Taliban were indeed ready or willing to talk. Yesterday’s announcement will help to erase those doubts, Western officials said, although they stressed that the process was closer to the beginning than the end and that there was no assurance that a final settlement could be reached.

Meaning there will be no deal. This is the same shit we have been reading for years, and I'm tired of it.

Said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks: “This isn’t even close to having a done deal. That’s going to take years, if it even happens.’’

ISLAMABAD - Eager to accelerate peace moves, top-level US officials have held talks with a representative of an insurgent movement led by a former Afghan prime minister who has been branded a terrorist by Washington, a relative of the rebel leader says.

Dr. Ghairat Baheer, a representative and son-in-law of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he has met separately with David Petraeus, former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who is now CIA director; US Ambassador Ryan Crocker; and US Marine General John Allen, the top commander in the country.

Baheer, who was released in 2008 after six years in US detention at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, described his talks with US officials as nascent and exploratory.

Wow, he suffered six years of torture.

Yet, Baheer says the discussions show that the United States knows that in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar - a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops - any peace deal would have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers, primarily in the north and east.

Hekmatyar’s group, Hizb-i-Islami - which means Islamic party - has had ties to Al Qaeda but in 2010 floated a 15-point peace plan during informal meetings with the Afghan government in Kabul. At the time, however, US officials refused to see the party’s delegation.

“Hizb-i-Islami is a reality that no one can ignore,’’ Baheer said during an interview last week at his spacious home in a suburb of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not confirm that such meetings took place but said the United States was maintaining “a range of contacts in support of an Afghan-led reconciliation process.’’

Yesterday, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, completed two days of meetings about the peace process with President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials. Grossman, who was to travel to Qatar today, urged the Taliban to issue a “clear statement’’ against international terrorism and affirm their commitment to the peace process “to end the armed conflict in Afghanistan.’’

US officials also have reached out to the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network to test its interest in peace talks. Haqqani fighters, the second largest insurgent group after the Taliban, have been blamed for most of the high-profile attacks in the heart of the Afghan capital....

On Saturday, Karzai said also he met recently with Hizb-i-Islami representatives....

Karzai’s announcement appeared intended to bolster his position as the key player in the search for peace....

Contacts with Hekmatyar’s group as well as parallel efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have taken on new urgency after the NATO decision to withdraw foreign combat forces, transfer security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014, and bring an end to the unpopular war, which is increasingly seen as a drain on the financially strapped Western countries that provide most of the troops.

"Hamid Karzai meets with cleric linked to Taliban; Asks for help to get insurgents into negotiations" by Asif Shahzad | Associated Press February 19, 2012

ISLAMABAD - The Afghan president met yesterday with a Pakistani cleric linked to Taliban insurgents, a meeting that marked the first public contact between an Afghan official and members of the Afghan Taliban’s support network in Pakistan in Afghanistan’s bid to bring the militant movement to the negotiating table.

The meeting between President Hamid Karzai and the cleric was held in Islamabad, according to the cleric and Afghan officials, and shows how far Karzai is willing to go for contact with the insurgent leaders.

Taliban leaders are widely thought to be based in Pakistan with some level of protection by the country’s security forces. The United States and Afghanistan increasingly see negotiating with the Taliban as the only way to end more than a decade of warfare in Afghanistan and allow American troops to leave the country without it falling further into chaos.

The cleric, Maulana Samiul Haq, runs a large seminary where many of the insurgent leaders once studied and reportedly still provides recruits for the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. He is known in some circles as the “Father of the Taliban,’’ but it is unclear how much sway he has currently with the movement.

Karzai met Haq in an Islamabad hotel, not his seminary closer to the Afghan border where he regularly preaches the virtues of jihad in Afghanistan to thousands of students.

Karzai’s trip reinforces the centrality of Pakistan to the peace process.

Pakistan is viewed as key because much of the Taliban leadership is thought to be based in the country, and the government has historical ties with the group. But Islamabad has always denied Taliban leaders are using its territory and rejected allegations that the Pakistani government has maintained its connections to the group, frustrating Afghan and American officials who have said Pakistan is not aggressively going after the terror group.

Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as its allies against the influence of its regional enemy, India, and is believed to be trying to use its influence with the group to limit India’s future power in Afghanistan.

Karzai met Thursday and Friday with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders to ask for their help in bringing the Taliban leadership to the table and ending the conflict that has wracked his country for years.

But there was little sign of progress....

Since its inception, the peace process has been beset by false hopes, mistrust, and the competing interests of the main players: Afghanistan, the United States, the Afghan Taliban, and Pakistan.

Afghan and Pakistani officials have complained about being sidelined in the peace process after the Taliban said they were opening an office in Qatar and were talking to the Americans. Publicly, the Afghan Taliban says it will not talk to Karzai, who they maintain is an illegitimate “puppet leader.’’

During Karzai’s three-day trip to Pakistan, he held meetings with political and religious figures in an attempt to push forward the peace process.

An aide to another hardline Islamist cleric, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, also said he met yesterday with the Afghan leader.

Karzai also met a delegation of a pro-Taliban Pakistani political party, Jamiat Ulema Pakistan. The party’s seminaries in Pakistan recruited and trained Taliban militants who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan....

KABUL — A major Afghan militant group is following in the Taliban’s footsteps by suspending talks with the United States and the Kabul government, another setback to efforts toward a peaceful resolution to the decadelong war.

I've got a way to find a peaceful resolution. TURN AROUND and F***ING LEAVE!

The insurgent faction Hezb-i-Islami was abandoning talks because they had produced nothing “practical,’’ said the group’s European representative, Qaribur Rahman Saeed. Earlier this month, the Taliban announced it was breaking off dialogue with the United States.

Part of the US-led coalition’s exit plan is to gradually transfer security responsibility to Afghan forces.

The guys increasingly turning on foreign troops? I think the message is GET OUT!

Another tack is to pull the Taliban and other militant factions into political discussions with the Afghan government.

Hizb-i-Islami is a radical Islamist militia that controls territory in Afghanistan’s northeast and launches attacks against US forces from Pakistan. Its leader, powerful warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former Afghan prime minister and onetime US ally who is now listed as a terrorist by Washington.

He just setback peace talks, 'eh?

The United States and Afghan governments know that in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, any peace deal would have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers primarily in the north and east. Mullah Omar is a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops....

The Taliban said they were suspending talks with the United States. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid accused the United States of failing to follow through on its promises.

Mujahid said they had agreed to discuss two issues only with the Americans: the establishment of the militant group’s political office in Qatar and a prisoner exchange. The Taliban are seeking the release of five top Taliban leaders from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The Taliban said the Americans initially agreed to take practical steps on these issues, but then came up with new conditions for the talks....

KABUL - The Taliban have stepped up a campaign of assassinations, creating a sense of siege that has made President Hamid Karzai a virtual prisoner of his own palace.

Smells more like a western intelligence agency operation to me, and I'm getting it straight from the mouthpiece. That's how I now view my newspaper: as one, long, distracting, divisive, obfuscating, agenda-pushing, war-promoting, intelligence operation.

While the surge of 30,000 additional US troops has had some success in pushing back the Taliban, the insurgents have hit back with targeted attacks intended to undermine public confidence by demonstrating the government’s inability to protect even its most senior officials....

Translation: You've been lied to, dear reader, be it the authorities or their mouthpieces. It would be f***ing funny if it were not so damn fatal.

Speaking before more than 250 members of Parliament, Karzai remembered Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council and a former president, who was killed in his home in September by a suicide bomber with explosives tucked in his turban.

He also mentioned General Dawood Dawood, deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, who was killed in May; General Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, the police chief of Kunduz Province who died in March; Muhammad Omar, governor of Kunduz Province, who died in October 2010; Jan Mohammad Khan, an aide to Karzai and a former governor of southern Oruzgan province until 2006, who was killed in Kabul in July by gunmen inside his house; and Hajji Malik Mohammad Zarin, a prominent elder who was killed by a suicide bomber in April.

CIA kill 'em to shut 'em up?

He also read out the name of his half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council and a power broker in the country’s south, who was shot to death by a police official in July.

Somewhat conspicuously, and not for the first time, Karzai avoided mentioning the deaths of foreign troops in Afghanistan, even though his speech came only a day after four French soldiers were shot and killed by an Afghan soldier.

Increasing violence by Afghan soldiers toward US and other coalition forces has raised tensions among the allies.

What it has led me to conclude is that it is time for NATO, the U.S., and all the rest to leave.When our allies who are going to takeover the place are firing on us.... sigh.

Karzai spoke as a top US envoy, Marc Grossman, arrived in Kabul for discussions about starting peace talks with the Taliban.

Pfffffffffttttt!

I have heard peace talks for f***ing years, and besides those are off now from what has been reported in the Globe.

The Karzai government has expressed concern that it is not being fully included in the US-led efforts to reopen direct negotiations with the insurgents, complaining that the Afghan government should lead any talks.

Karzai used the speech to underscore Afghanistan’s right to decide its own future.

In reference to the long history of intervention by foreign powers in the country from Britain to the Soviet Union and the US-led coalition, he said, “Afghanistan is not a place for foreigners to do their political experiments or a laboratory that every few years they test a new political system.’’

Yeah, and what is omitted from the report and background is that the CIA created "Al-CIA-Duh" to lure in the Soviets and give them their own Vietnam. Then they took the list and turned them into the "enemy"after the false-flag inside job of 9/11 so the globe-kickers could repeat the Russian mistake!

Apparently reflecting the government’s longstanding concern about meddling by Pakistan, Karzai also called on those Afghan insurgents to lay down their “foreign weapons.’’

Yeah, right.

Didn't Pakistan shut down those contractor pipelines over the NATO missile attacks?

Maybe Karzai was referring to them, maybe he wasn't; in any event, I don't trust the interpretation by my agenda-pushing war daily. Sorry.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that Pakistan, where much of the Taliban leadership resides, could use the insurgents as a stalking horse to strike a deal with Washington, and in the process secure its own position in Afghanistan.

Yeah, good thing the U.S. never engages in covert operations for such ends, sigh.

In what seemed like an effort to demonstrate that the government was prepared to push forward on its own with peace negotiations, Karzai said that he had personally held peace talks recently with the insurgent group Hezb-i-Islami, or Islamic Party, which operates under a separate command from the Taliban.

KABUL - An Afghan soldier turned his gun on US military personnel while they were playing volleyball over the weekend at a camp in southern Afghanistan, killing one and wounding three others before being fatally shot, the Afghan police said yesterday.

It was the third time in just more than two weeks that a man wearing an Afghan Army uniform attacked NATO personnel. In the earlier cases, the Taliban claimed responsibility. There was no immediate claim in this case that the Afghan soldier had Taliban sympathies....

Afghan soldiers have repeatedly shot their NATO counterparts in recent years, and there is widespread concern among NATO and Afghan commanders that insurgents might be infiltrating the ranks of the Afghan security forces....

KABUL - A roadside bomb detonated by remote control killed five people Saturday in southern Afghanistan, including a former Afghan senator and tribal leader who worked to foster peace and development.

Those guys always seem to meet a violent end.

The former lawmaker, Khairo Jan, was riding in a vehicle with three bodyguards and another tribal leader from the area when the bomb exploded on the road as they passed, a spokesman for the Uruzgan Province police chief said."

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

"France ponders early pullout from Afghanistan; 4 troops killed by member of local forces" by Steven Erlanger and Alissa J. Rubin | New York Times, January 21, 2012

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy of France suspended military training and assistance for Afghan forces yesterday and said he would consider an early withdrawal from Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier shot and killed four French soldiers on a base in eastern Afghanistan.

The attack was the latest in a series of episodes in which Afghan soldiers or police officers, or insurgents wearing official uniforms, have opened fire on soldiers of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.

The killings are designed to sap Western morale and hasten the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan sooner than an agreed NATO deadline of the end of 2014, when Afghan forces are supposed to be ready to defend the country on their own.

Can't be much of that left anymore. We should have left yesterday.

A rising number of the attacks have also been born of simmering animosity between coalition forces and the Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train.

With many European countries facing unprecedented economic pressures at home, such attacks by Afghan soldiers on foreign troops have added to public questioning of the value of continued involvement in Afghanistan. If France were to reduce its troops early or precipitously it could spur other countries to follow suit, Western and Afghan officials warned.

France has been a firm ally of the United States in Afghanistan, with the fourth-largest contingent of troops, according to NATO figures, and 82 French soldiers have died....

I suspect they are really not going anywhere, and I hope the price was worth the lies.

Facing a fierce battle for his reelection, Sarkozy said security had better improve in Afghanistan, if France were to stay....

Phony and politics go together like chocolate and peanut butter!

Sarkozy’s main rival, Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande, who is leading in the polls for the spring vote, immediately repeated his call for French troops to pull out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, a break with NATO solidarity.

The sense of French wavering was felt strongly in Kabul. Sarkozy’s talk of leaving early, even if rhetorical, “is not very good in terms of alliance cohesion,’’ said a Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the news media. An early French withdrawal could lay bare “real cracks in the coalition’’ at a time when the alliance is seeking a cohesive position to end the war.

NATO is trying to convince the Afghan government of its long-term commitment while pushing the Taliban insurgents to negotiate a peace deal rather than continue fighting. Both efforts have been only moderately successful.

If NATO really wanted peace we would have had it by now.

There is no question that the patience of America’s NATO allies with the expensive, deadly Afghan war has been running out.

And for the people of those places, the patience has been long gone. I've got five years on the blog to prove it.

They joined the war alongside the United States, which had been attacked by Al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001, from its sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

You know, when a newspaper keeps repeating a lie.... SIGH!

But the Taliban government is long gone, Osama bin Laden is dead, and Al Qaeda has been diminished and mostly pushed into Pakistan.

KABUL - One week after four French troops were killed by a rogue Afghan soldier, prompting President Nicolas Sarkozy to suspend military operations in Afghanistan, France will sign an agreement outlining its commitment here over the next two decades.

Oh, a FRENCH FOOLEY, 'eh?

French troops will continue to train their Afghan counterparts well beyond 2014, when combat operations are due to conclude, according to the agreement described by Afghan and French officials.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will sign similar agreements with Britain and Italy during a trip to Europe this week....

Despite about a year of negotiations, the United States has been unable to secure its own agreement, which would govern the US military and diplomatic presence after the majority of US troops have withdrawn.

Karzai has said that he will not sign such an agreement until “NATO-led night raids,’’ are halted.

PARIS - France and Afghanistan agree that NATO should hand all combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013 - a year earlier than the planned US withdrawal - President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday, raising new questions about the unity of the Western military alliance.

And the slop being shoveled at you as news, dear 'murkn!

Sarkozy also announced a faster-track exit for France, the fourth-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan - marking a distinct break from previous plans to adhere to the US goal of withdrawing combat forces by the end of 2014. The proposal comes a week after four unarmed French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier described as a Taliban infiltrator.

He just signed an agreement to.... SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarkozy, alongside the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who was in Paris for a previously planned visit, said France had told the United States of its plan and will present it at a Feb. 2-3 meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He said he would call President Obama about it today.

A sense of mission fatigue has been growing among some European contributors to the 10-year allied intervention in Afghanistan....

As for the populations of such places, it is now far beyond fatigue to bald hatred.

KABUL, Afghanistan - France’s call for a speedier NATO exit from Afghanistan reflects the depth of war fatigue in the West and raises fears that other countries in the US-led coalition will succumb to rising political pressure and pull their troops home early.

Political pressure hasn't mattered to them for ten f***ing years, why would it now?

Yeah, I AM SICK to NOPP (no paper purchases last two days) of my f***ing pos AmeriKan newspaper, folks! How could you tell?

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to fast-track its withdrawal - just days after an Afghan soldier gunned down four French troops - is the latest crack in a coalition strained by economic troubles in Europe and the United States, the Afghan government’s sluggish battle against corruption, on-again off-again cooperation from neighboring Pakistan, and a bloodied but dogged Taliban.

The international coalition is rushing against the clock to meet President Hamid Karzai’s goal of having the Afghan police and army in charge of the nation’s security by the end of 2014. France’s break with that timetable, which was agreed to by NATO members, now raises the question: Can the coalition stay together until then?

*****************************************

France, which now has about 3,600 soldiers in the coalition force, joins the United States, Britain, Germany, and Italy in the top five largest troop-contributing nations.

Talk of an accelerated exit alarmed many Afghans, especially those who have cast their lot with the US-backed government but have little confidence in their country’s own security forces. Some said France was reneging on its promises.

Afghan lawmaker Tahira Mujadedi, who represents Kapisa, said Afghan forces there are not ready to go it alone in fighting the Taliban insurgency, which is especially strong in several of the province’s districts. She warned that if NATO forces pull back from Kapisa, it could destabilize nearby Kabul.

I was told we were winning (frown).

Foreign forces should consider staying even longer than 2014, she said.

Oh, they ALREADY ARE! They SIGNED AGREEMENTS that for some strange reason are BEING OBFUSCATED by my WAR DAILY!

“When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen,’’ said Mujadedi, who expressed sadness about the French troops who were killed.

But she added: “They are not here for a holiday.’’

Abdul Hadi Khalid, former Afghan interior minister and military analyst, said Sarkozy’s decision was clearly political....

No, it is the corporate media spin that looks political.

In a gentle rebuke to France, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said in London yesterday that withdrawals should be dependent on security conditions on the ground....

Gee, WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE, Americans?

Other nations facing extreme economic problems, such as Italy and Spain, are not planning early withdrawals.

“We are a responsible country. We are a big country that honors its commitments that it agrees to make,’’ said Italy’s defense minister, Giampaolo Di Paola. Italy signed a pact this week aimed at supporting Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw in 2014....

TOULOUSE, France — A man opened fire outside a Jewish school in southwest France Monday morning, killing four people, three of them children, and wounding another, officials said.

It was the third killing of unarmed people in the region in little over a week, and police said the same gun was used in all three attacks.

Witnesses said a man fled the scene in Toulouse on a motorbike. Last week, a man on a motorbike killed three French paratroopers and critically wounded another in two separate shootings, police officials said.

The soldiers were all Arab or black, but were paratroopers from a unit that fought in Afghanistan.

There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the killings, which police are treating as acts of terrorism.

Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, said a rabbi, his two children, and another child were killed in the attack and a 17-year-old boy was seriously wounded.

The killer “shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school,’’ Valet said.

The attack is the worst on Jews in France since 1982, when the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris was bombed at lunchtime, killing six people and wounding 22.

In 1980, a terrorist group threw a bomb at a Jewish synagogue on Rue Copernic in Paris, killing four people and wounding about 40.

Monday’s shooting brought a climate of fear to the region, with the French state ordering increased surveillance of all religious schools, as well as synagogues and mosques.

It also brought immediate condemnations from President Nicolas Sarkozy and from his main rival for the presidency, Francois Hollande, both of whom broke off their political campaigns to rush to the scene.

Cui bono?

An intensive search was underway and the government raised the terrorism alert level to its highest level ever across a section of southern France surrounding Toulouse. Sarkozy said 14 riot police units “will secure the region as long as this criminal’’ is at large....

Later, Prime Minister Francois Fillon was quoted as saying the enhanced security measures would be broadened to include all schools and religious buildings....

Ozar Hatorah is a Jewish society promoting religious education among young people, especially in the Middle East, northern Africa, and among the Sephardic Jewish community in France, which has the largest number of Jews in Europe, estimated to be at least 550,000. A promotional video posted in 2010 showed students engaged in academic and religious studies.

The authorities have been hunting the gunman who killed the soldiers since last week, and the military has told soldiers not to wear their uniforms in public.

The wave of killings has stunned France, prompting tense speculation about its cause. Even before the shootings Monday, there was discussion about a possible racial or ethnic component to the attacks.

"French Terror Attack: All the Hallmarks of an Intelligence Psy-op and False Flag

by Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 21, 2012

Mohammed Merah, the suspect in the killing of seven people outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, fits the pattern of an al-Qaeda intelligence asset. According to the BBC, he was on the radar of French authorities because of visits he made to Afghanistan and the “militant stronghold” of Waziristan in Pakistan.

More specifically, Merah was handled by France’s DCRI intelligence service “for years,” according to Claude Guéant, the interior minister....

"No signs French gunman tied to militant groups; Autopsy shows he was struck by about 20 bullets" by Jamey Keaten | Associated Press, March 24, 2012

PARIS - Investigators have found no signs the suspected gunman behind a deadly string of attacks in southern France was under orders from Al Qaeda or any militant group, a top French official said Friday - disputing Mohamed Merah’s claim of terrorist ties before he died in a shootout with commandos.

In other words, the jig is up!

France’s prime minister and other officials have been fending off suggestions that antiterrorism authorities failed to adequately monitor Merah, who had been known to them for years before he carried out three deadly shooting attacks this month.

Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent who asserted links to Al Qaeda, was killed in a dramatic gunfight with police Thursday after a 32-hour standoff at his Toulouse apartment. Prosecutors said he filmed himself carrying out the attacks that began March 11, killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three French paratroopers with close-range shots to the head....

An autopsy of the gunman’s body showed he received two fatal bullet wounds to the left temple and to the abdomen - but that he was hit by some 20 bullets, mainly in the arms and legs, judicial and police officials said.

The head of the elite police unit, Amaury de Hauteclocque - whose mission was to take Merah alive - insisted his men fired only in self-defense.

Investigators looking for possible accomplices homed in on Merah’s 29-year-old brother, Abdelkader, and the brother’s girlfriend, described by one official as espousing an ultraconservative form of Islam. Both were detained early Wednesday, along with Merah’s mother....

Abdelkader Merah had been implicated in a 2007 network that sent militant fighters to Iraq, but was never charged. Merah’s mother was to be released.

Meanwhile, a senior official close to the investigation said that despite Merah’s assertions to negotiators that he had Al Qaeda links, there was no sign he had “trained or been in contact with organized groups or jihadists.’’

The former auto body worker went to Afghanistan in 2010 and to Pakistan in 2011, and said he trained with Al Qaeda in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. He had been on a US no-fly list since 2010.

The official said Merah might have made the assertion because Al Qaeda is a well-known “brand,’’ adding there was “absolutely no evidence allowing us to believe that he was commissioned by Al Qaeda to carry out these attacks.’’

Merah was questioned by French intelligence officers last November after his second trip to Afghanistan, and was cooperative and provided a USB key with tourist-like photos of his trip, the official said.

While he was under surveillance last year, Merah was never seen contacting any radicals and went to nightclubs, not mosques, the official said. People who knew him confirmed that he was at a nightclub in recent weeks.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s spy chief, meanwhile, said that Merah told negotiators he attacked the Jewish school only after missing his original target - a French soldier....

That account appears to contradict Merah’s statement that his attacks were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children, protest the French army’s involvement in Afghanistan, and a law banning Islamic face veils.

No other positions meant to be discredited?

The widow of the slain rabbi and mother of two of the slain children issued an emotional plea online Friday, urging Jewish parents to honor her dead family members by loving their children and teaching them to love “their fellow man.’’

In a letter released on an Orthodox Jewish website, Eva Sandler wrote that the “spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished.’’

I'm sad that innocent people are dead; however, I'm more sick of the supremacist arrogance and exclusion.

Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past. According to the report, Merah's passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack. However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is, after all, the Mossad’s motto.

"More and more it looks like this guy was a patsy for a false-flag operation to build sympathy for Israel and a "wag the dog" to take the media focus off of the massacre of 16 civilians (9 children) by Americans in Afghanistan earlier this month." -- Wake the Flock Up

"Al Qaeda" Killer's Extensive Links To French Authorities

By Brit, ResistRadio.com

The man accused of killing seven people during recent gun attacks in Toulouse has been killed, following a 32 hour standoff with police - as more information has come to light about his extensive links to the French authorities. Mohammed Merah, a self-proclaimed Al Qaeda operative, was reportedly found dead on the ground after being shot in the head and falling from his apartment window, following a five minute gun battle when police stormed the building.

Whilst French authorities claimed to want to end the standoff peacefully and take Merah alive, the siege's fatal finale conveniently removes from the picture a suspect who appears to have had a great deal of contact with both the French intelligence services and the police - and even with the US military.

French interior minister Claude Guéant yesterdayrevealed that Merah had been on the radar of the DCRI - France's domestic intelligence agency - "for years". It has since transpired that Merah was questioned by the intelligence service as recently as November 2011, after being summoned to explain trips he had made to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Astonishingly, Merah was reportedly granted freedom to leave by his French intelligence questioners after providing them with photographs supporting his claims of having merely been on an innocent tourist holiday.

That Merah's explanation satisfied the intelligence service is inexplicable, considering their familiarity with his track record of suspicious activity. Merah had reportedly made two trips to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and whilst his attorney Christian Etelin has denied such rumours, some have claimed he even spent time in a Kandahar jail before escaping during a Taliban breakout. Whilst Merah's reported time in an Afghan jail has yet to be established, other sources, including top French prosecutor Francois Mollins, have stated that he was arrested by Afghan police at a checkpoint and handed over to the US military, before being flown back to France. US military officials have claimed not to have any information regarding Merah's alleged detention in Afghanistan.

Today saw further revelations come to light about the French authorities' knowledge of Merah's violent tendencies. A report in French newspaper Le Télégramme details how the mother of a 15 year old boy claims she twice filed complaints with the police, after Merah showed her son violent Jihadist videos and extremist literature at his Toulouse apartment. The woman, identified by the pseudonym Aisha, said that:

"I am appalled. It took all these people [to be] killed for Mohammed Merah [to be] finally stopped,” she said. “The police knew all about the danger of this individual and his radicalism".

Le Télégramme also reports how Merah allegedly went into the street outside the woman's house wearing military fatigues, brandishing a sword, and shouting "I'm with Al-Qaida".

Mohammed Merah's older brother Abdelkader was apparently also well known to the authorities. He was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Knights of Pride - an extremist group against the banning of the burka in France. It was from Adbelkader's computer that an unsecured email was allegedly sent to one of Mohammed's victims, arranging to view a motorbike - an appointment at which the paratrooper was murdered. Merah was tracked down after the IP address and location were traced from the email.

The French authorities' excuses for their inablility to prevent Merah's killings are highly questionable. As Merah very much fits the profile of a classic intelligence asset - young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality - serious questions should be asked about whether he really just "slipped through the net", or if in reality the intelligence services deliberately failed to prevent the attack, or even actively provocateured it.

In this regard it is interesting to note that Nikolas Sarkozy, previously trailing in the polls in a French election year, is now the favourite to win the first round of the presidential election next month. Sarkozy has promised a shocked French nation that he will crack down on Islamic extremism should he be re-elected, as well as stating that he will introduce stricter monitoring of the internet, and make it a crime to visit unspecified "hate" websites.

"French protesters force Sarkozy to hole up in cafe while on campaign trail" Associated press, March 02, 2012

BAYONNE, France - Several hundred angry protesters booed President Nicolas Sarkozy, forcing him to take refuge in a cafe protected by riot police as he campaigned yesterday in France’s southwest Basque country.

Riot police surrounded the Bar du Palais in central Bayonne where Sarkozy holed up to get away from the protesters - some of them Basque nationalists, others carrying posters of rival Socialist candidate Francois Hollande.

Inside the cafe, Sarkozy denounced “the violence of a minority and their unacceptable behavior.’’

He really said that about Zionists?

He remained in the cafe for about an hour, meeting with residents of Bayonne. Some of the protesters outside threw eggs toward the barrier of riot police guarding the cafe.

:-)

The conservative Sarkozy trails Hollande, the front-runner, in the two-pronged April and May presidential election.

“Here, we’re in France, on the territory of the French republic, and the president of the republic will go everywhere,’’ Sarkozy said once inside the cafe. “And if that doesn’t please a minority of troublemakers, too bad for them.’’

The narrow streets of the historic center of Bayonne were packed with supporters and protesters following Sarkozy during his visit. Tension mounted as Basque separatists threw pieces of paper at him. They were joined by others holding portraits of Hollande and his presidential program.

“If this is the concept of democracy, that the Socialists associate with Basque separatists, if this is it, the country they have in mind, it doesn’t make you want to get there,’’ Sarkozy said to reporters inside the cafe.

Sarkozy left the cafe escorted by riot police and protected by an umbrella. The president’s campaign spokeswoman, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, asked Socialists to “respect the rules of democratic debate.’’

“It’s not because you don’t have ideas that you have to stop others from expressing theirs,’’ she said.

LE MANS, France - Francois Hollande, a second-fiddle fixture for years in French politics, has emerged as a possible giant-killer over the past 10 months.

According to polls, the glad-hander with a ready wit and perpetual smile has a real chance to block Nicolas Sarkozy’s reelection and become France’s first Socialist president since 1995.

With Europe in the grip of a punishing debt crisis, Hollande and his Socialists would have little margin for abrupt change should he replace Sarkozy’s conservative government in the two-round vote April 27 and May 6. But a Sarkozy defeat after only one five-year term would mark an unusual reversal for a politician who promised “rupture’’ in the way France does business and, with relentless energy, has propelled himself to prominence on the European stage.

The opening for Hollande’s unexpected challenge came in the disgrace of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund chief who was considered an easy winner for the Socialist Party nomination until he was accused in May of sexually assaulting a cleaning woman at a New York hotel.

The charges were dropped when prosecutors decided the woman was unreliable. But other sex-related accusations against Strauss-Kahn have since arisen in France, and the onetime luminary has vanished from the political stage.

As a recent political rally here demonstrated, however, Hollande has developed his own following in months of tireless campaigning, during which he has pledged to soften the impact of the debt crisis on France’s poor and unemployed and has attacked Sarkozy as a heartless friend of the rich....

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!

France cannot reduce its debt by cutting into unemployment benefits and health-care budgets, he declared, but must instead impose higher taxes on capital gains and close loopholes that allow the rich to pay smaller proportions of their incomes than wage-earners.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!

In addition, he said to raucous applause, the government must step in to cap the compensation and retirement packages of senior executives, which he noted seem to rise annually despite the financial crisis....

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy of France heard his first welcome news in a while Tuesday: a boost in the polls likely to encourage his reach to the far right for votes and ideas in his battle for reelection.

For the first time in this campaign, a new poll suggests the long-unpopular president could beat Socialist Francois Hollande in the first round of voting next month. But, like all previous polls, it indicates Hollande would beat the incumbent convincingly in the crucial runoff.

The campaign remains full of uncertainties. A second poll made public Tuesday shows Hollande maintaining a solid first-round lead.

The conservative Sarkozy has shifted visibly to the right in his campaign, calling for a crackdown on immigration and criticizing measures accommodating France’s millions of Muslims. He is trying to tap votes from the resurgent far right and its candidate Marine Le Pen, who is polling at a strong third place and whose father made it into the 2002 presidential runoff....

PARIS - French police fired tear gas at steelworkers worried about job losses Thursday, as they tried to force their way toward the headquarters of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reelection campaign.

The protest brought the troubles of France’s industrial heartland to the capital’s elegant boulevards and the lawns beneath the Eiffel Tower.

France’s high unemployment and stagnant economy are central to the campaign for elections in April and May. Many voters see the conservative Sarkozy as too friendly with the rich, and his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande is the frontrunner in polls.

About 200 workers from an ArcelorMittal steel plant in Florange in northeast France came to Paris in buses as part of a protest movement to try to save jobs at the factory.

Riot police and gendarmes met the protesters and tried to push them back with shields. After several minutes of fighting, the police fired tear gas to break up the crowd.

"With four weeks to go until the first-round vote in the presidential election, the killings have become intensely, and unpleasantly, political. Mr Sarkozy has called for "national unity" and "dignity" but his re-election campaign is trying to extract maximum advantage from the affair. Senior figures in the President's UMP party have begun to attack François Hollande, the Socialist front-runner, as "soft" on terrorism."

"Thousands of Putin backers rally in Moscow ahead of vote; Government’s hand apparent in popular event" by Kathy Lally and Will Englund | Washington Post, February 24, 2012

MOSCOW - In a show of strength that demonstrated his intention to win the presidency by a landslide, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin put his political machine into high gear yesterday as it assembled tens of thousands of people for a meticulously organized, and heavily patriotic, preelection rally.

You know, I have really, really had it with the pot-hollering-kettle crap AmeriKan media.

Using the considerable means at his disposal, Putin showed why even the opposition here expects him to emerge as the victor in the March 4 election. He freely deployed government resources, and marshaled as participants those who rely on a government paycheck - or a paycheck from a company that enjoys government largesse....

So did the ministry of emergency situations. The Moscow schools food service program delivered rations in its trucks.

Military police directed traffic. Banners were handed out, sometimes to people who did not know what they stood for. All this was in contrast to the opposition demonstrations of earlier weeks - as was the trash that yesterday’s attendees left behind.

That's the same complaint the agenda-pushing media makes about Occupy here!! How very instructive!

But being recruited, pressured, or forced to attend did not appear to translate into a lack of genuine support for Putin. “Stability,’’ agreed the retired women, was what they approve of in Putin. They, like many others, chose not to give their names - also in contrast to the opposition protesters.

“Everything will be great; Ingushetia is for Putin,’’ said Uruskhan Galayev, a 20-year-old student, who was clearly enjoying the chance for an outing with his friends.

“At this point in time, it’s better to have a president with experience and who has already dealt with crises,’’ said Sergei Grigorin, a 54-year-old retired veteran. Besides, he added, “none of the other candidates has a chance of winning the election.’’

That, in fact, has been one of the main opposition complaints against Putin. He has apparently decided that he must win more than 50 percent of the vote, to avoid a second round. So a government-controlled polling agency now reports that he is in line to win 58.6 percent of the vote, after steady improvement all winter.

That could be an actual reflection of his standing - or it could be the response to an order from on high. Reports of widespread fraud in December’s parliamentary elections have generated a large degree of suspicion on officially reported numbers.

I KNOW the FEELING!!

Pressure against the few remnants of a free press has been stepped up. The government moved to take firmer control of Ekho Moskvy, an insouciant radio station; security agents raided the bank of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire and former KGB agent who provides financial support for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which said it would have to suspend staff salaries for a month; and prosecutors questioned a lively Internet TV station, called Dozhd, as to whether it receives financing from US sources.

Putin has been hammering away at the United States, and yesterday - the Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland, a holiday formerly known as Soviet Army Day - he dwelt on Russian pride and patriotism.

Seems to be okay when AmeriKan politicians wave and wrap themselves in the flag.

“We came here to say we love Russia,’’ Putin said after striding onto a stage in the middle of the 80,000-seat Luzhniki stadium under a steadily falling snow. “We are the defenders of our fatherland.’’

The response from the crowd was muted. Thousands had streamed out before he arrived, complaining of the cold and, in many cases, declaring that they had fulfilled their obligation to a boss or teacher and now just wanted to go home. They may not have known he would speak - whether he would or not was not clear until he entered the stadium. But thousands more had stayed.

Can you see why I'm so sick of this shit and unenthusiastic about reading and analyzing it?

One or two applause lines went by in silence - but when Putin finished, the stadium erupted into cheers.

The implication being they were cheering at the fact that he was done.

Did I mention I was tired of s*** insults, too?

Putin evoked a Russia under siege, recalling that this year marks the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the Battle of Borodino.

MOSCOW - Thousands of protesters held hands to form a 10-mile human chain encircling central Moscow yesterday to keep up the pressure on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he prepares to extend his rule for six more years.

Putin, who was Russia’s president from 2000 to 2008, is running for a third term - now set at 6 years long - in an election March 4. He is expected to win easily against four Kremlin-approved challengers, but an unprecedented wave of protests has undermined his image as a strong leader who rules with broad public support.

The protest yesterday appeared drew about the 34,000 people that opposition activists estimated were needed to complete the chain along the Garden Ring, a wide road that makes a loop around the city center. Almost all of the people standing in the wet snow wore the white ribbons that have become a symbol of the peaceful anti-Putin protest movement.

When the agenda-pushing newspapers endorse your protest you know it is an intelligence operation.

Young Putin supporters also were out in sections of the Garden Ring yesterday.

And I'll bet there were a LOT MORE!

Wearing heart-shaped red signs around their necks that said “Putin loves everyone,’’ they handed out similar ribbons in imitation of the protesters. Some passers-by refused the pro-Putin ribbons, which had stripes of white, blue, and red like the national flag.

The Garden Ring was the scene of protests on two past Sundays, when hundreds of people drove cars decorated with white ribbons and balloons as others waved from the sidewalks and overpasses as they went by, horns blaring.

These demonstrations have helped the protest movement maintain momentum between the huge rallies in Moscow that have drawn tens of thousands of people.

That tune will be changing real soon.

The protests began in December following a parliamentary election that saw widespread vote rigging to boost the results for Putin’s party....

It was rigging the other way, but what would you expect from the AmeriKan media at this point?

MOSCOW - A day after claiming an overwhelming victory in Russia’s presidential elections, Vladimir Putin faced a range of challenges Monday to his legitimacy, including charges of fraud from international observers and a defiant opposition that vowed to keep him from serving his full six-year term.

While Putin was still celebrating his win, thousands of antigovernment protesters gathered in a city square to blast his victory as illegitimate, chanting “Russia without Putin,’’ and “Putin is a thief; we are the government!’’

When riot police demanded the crowd disperse an hour later, dozens of demonstrators circled blogger Alexei Navalny, the most charismatic figure to emerge in this wave of activism, but officers detained him and pushed him into a police van along with most of the movement’s other prominent leaders. Dozens of other arrests were reported, while determined protesters tried to keep regrouping....

That blogger must be one of their agents.

Putin also received a figurative slap in the face from observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which said he had faced no real competition and unfairly benefited from lavish government spending on his behalf.

He received milder rebukes from the European Union and from the United States, which called on the government to conduct a thorough investigation of fraud allegations but said it was ready to work with Putin in his new role.

Putin’s capture of 63.7 percent of the vote Sunday extended his claim on power to 18 years and strengthened his hand against the opposition, which he cast as pawns of Russia’s enemies. The Monday crowd, which police estimated at 14,000, had little of the giddy confidence of the past, instead showing uncertainty and anger....

Putin was genuinely shaken in December, when his United Russia Party performed dismally in parliamentary elections. Even those results were padded by ballot-stuffing and other flagrant violations. Putin’s own approval rating had dropped to a 10-year low, suggesting that he had miscalculated in announcing his return to the presidency for a six-year term.

MOSCOW - Thousands of people thronged a concourse along a main street in Moscow on Saturday to denounce President Vladimir V. Putin and to cry out together, one more time, for political freedom.

They waved the flags of opposition parties in a kaleidoscopic swirl; wore white ribbons that read, “Russia demands change’’; and chanted now-familiar refrains: “Russia without Putin!’’ and “Russia will be free!’’

And so Moscow’s winter of dissent drew to a close. Or so it seemed.

The protest movement that burst forth after disputed parliamentary elections in December and drew the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the fall of the Soviet Union collided with the cold reality of Putin’s convincing victory in the presidential election last Sunday, and with the limits of the opposition’s own inchoate coalition.

In the 13 weeks since the first rally on Bolotnaya Square, the movement had not spread much beyond Moscow, and no clear leader had emerged.

Then WHY was the AmeriKan media making it seem so huge?

The outrage over electoral fraud in December and anger over Putin’s return to the presidency, perhaps for 12 more years, brought together radicals, moderates, liberals, fascists, communists, nationalists, social democrats, the young, and the old, many of them from Moscow’s new and growing middle class.

They turned against Putin after he raised their standards of living?

But while they shared grievances, organizers acknowledged that they had yet to settle on a common goal or a common path forward.

“We know who we are against,’’ said Kseniya Sobchak, a television celebrity and socialite who is one of the most recognizable protesters. “We need to show what we are for.’’

For Saturday’s protest, the authorities granted a permit for up to 50,000 people - perhaps 20,000 showed up....

Putin received 64 percent of the vote, according to official returns, and while there were allegations of widespread voting irregularities, even many of his critics acknowledged that he had won a majority of votes.

With the protest movement at a crossroads, some participants talked about possibly joining a new political party that the billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov, who finished third in the election, has vowed to create.

Related:

"Prokhorov, a pro-business candidate who has espoused democratic reforms, could attract liberal support, but some analysts here have questioned whether he has been put up by the Kremlin to split the reformists’ vote."

Others talked about pushing Putin hard to fulfill his campaign promises of government reform.

MOSCOW - A Russian court sentenced the husband of an opposition activist to five years in prison Thursday in a case that has outraged antigovernment protesters.

Also Thursday, separate Moscow courts sentenced opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov to 10 days in jail for disobeying police during a protest rally last weekend and ordered Alexei Navalny, perhaps the most charismatic of the protest leaders, to pay a fine of $33 for disobeying police orders at a rally.

The case against Alexei Kozlov dates to 2008, when he was arrested on charges of fraud related to a business deal with a former member of Parliament. He was initially sentenced to eight years in prison, but his wife, journalist Olga Romanova, successfully battled the legal system until the Supreme Court overturned her husband’s conviction and ordered him released in September.

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